


Paraphilia

by Albione



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Comedy, Fix-It of Sorts, Other, Quite Sad if You Think, Tragic Commedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-24 00:52:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albione/pseuds/Albione
Summary: Paraphilia: Sexual arousal towards atypical objects.Or when Elio visits his Psychiatrist.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I must stop writing these one offs. But I am unable to stay serious for long stretches, so if I let off steam with them it means that Coda is left in peace. I might put them all in one work so they are kept hidden.  
> Comments are much appreciated even if they question my sanity...

Dottoressa Isabella Manatti-Scaglieri was one of the foremost psychoanalysts in Italy, but years of experience could not help her with her most troublesome patient.  
As he lay on the couch she wondered if she could ever truly help him; they had never really managed to face the root of the problem, only scraped the surface.  
Things had got better; he now only came to visit when he could not manage the situation and needed help in containing his urges, generally as summer arrived.

“So Mr Perlman, what happened yesterday that you needed to call me in a panic?” She was good with the soothing neutral tone of voice.  
He was looking at the celling with a glazed expression; he was a handsome man, straight nose and green eyes, his beard did not hide the strong jawline.

“I was walking towards the Teatro dell’Opera and stupidly walked through the street market…”  
He shuddered, as if just remembering brought the shame and excitement he had felt.  
Isabella had to supress a sigh, once more they were at square one; three years of analysis and they just barely managed to contain the problem.  
She waited for him to continue.

“And they were there, a whole pile of them, just sitting there inviting me to touch them, defile them…”  
The excitement in his voice was palpable, as soon as he realised he tried to tone it down.  
“They were as round and blushed as in my dreams, I could imagine the texture of the furry flesh and I bought twenty of them, called in sick missing an important rehearsal, and went home to defile them all!”  
He sobbed.  
All the cognitive work done in the past years undone in a morning. But she knew that this season was the most difficult for him.

“Mr Perlman, we know that the beginning of the peach season is difficult, you have not failed. We just need to organise the coping strategy for the rest of the summer.”  
In winter he managed to avoid the fruit aisles in the supermarkets, since globalisation did mean that all fruit was available all year round. But the summer was impossible for him to cope with, peaches were everywhere.  
Just the word peach made him hard, he could not help it.  
“If you manage to masturbate into only one peach a day you will be able to relive your desires without interfering in your daily life.” This strategy had worked, and he just needed to remember it.

Mr Perlman nodded, he knew that it was the only way forward till the end of summer; he just needed help to not feel so ashamed.  
“Can you describe your feelings with the peach? How did it make you feel, especially afterwards.”

The silence stretched as he was gathering his thoughts.  
“The texture and shape felt as an ass, I ran my fingers down the ridge and then pushed my thumb into the end and speared the stone out of the other side…” His voice deepened and he felt sweaty. He tried to control his breathing and let out a sob. “But there is always something missing afterwards, always this feeling of emptiness…” He could not continue, the loss was too real.

Isabella had heard it all before, she knew that he was keeping something vital from her, but she could never push him to tell her what it was.  
There was no Freudian mother hang ups, he was openly bisexual, just that peaches were an attraction he could not resist for some unknown reason. They symbolised something deep inside his psyche.  
She remembered when he told her the horror he felt when a partner had surprised him in the shower masturbating into a peach. The relationship never recovered and there was a wistful tone in his voice, as though he was hoping for a different reaction from them that would have made him feel less empty.  
She needed to find a way to explore that hope; find what was missing from his life.

The session ended with the promise of a follow up by the end of the week; the one peach a day did generally work, but he needed not to feel guilty if he slipped up.

Later in the day Isabella’s phone rang; it was Doctor Gregory Wills, an American psychiatrist she met during a conference a couple of years ago.  
“Hello Greg, how are things?”  
“Fine Isabella, I just need some advice. Do you still treat your peaches patient?”

She had mentioned Mr Perlman, totally anonymously of course, when she felt hopeless in helping him.  
“Yes, he actually was in today, the summer is the worse season for him.”

“Have you managed any coping mechanism with him you can share with me? You see, I have just started with a patient that has a similar problem. A good looking Ivy League professor with a paraphilia for apricots. It is ruining his marriage; he cannot even pass a carton of apricot juice without uncontrolled reactions… as muttering ‘Apricock, cock, pre-cook’ in the middle of an aisle. He has done worse but it is confidential, a really difficult case.”

“Goodness they are a match made in Heaven!” she exclaimed.  
They are indeed.


	2. The season of fruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio back at the villa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thank quima who planted in my mind to continue this car crash. I have added tags so you will gen an idea where it is going...

“Elly Belly we missed you!”  
Professor Perlman hugged his son in a vice like grip. Elio tried to escape but his mother blocked him and joined the embarrassing group hug.  
“Hi dad, hi mom, sorry if it is the end of summer, but I had a busy schedule…”  
“I know, Maestro Perlman at Caracalla! What a concert that was. And then the tour of all the French festivals, I am so proud of you!”  
Elio smiled and risked glancing at the fruit trees that seemed to be bare thank goodness.   
The summer season had finished; his summer had ended even before it had begun a long time ago.

He could not confess that he readily accepted all the summer tours just to avoid the villa in the summer. Just that those damned peaches where everywhere.   
He was seriously thinking of a summer tour in Australia and New Zealand; an eternal winter suited him fine.

At lunch he let himself be spoilt by his parents and Mafalda; they were so happy seeing him that he felt guilty.  
At Arles he was playing the Midnight Sonata with fingers sticky with peach juice; just plain horrible, not so much masturbating in his changing room just before a concert, but not managing to clean himself.   
He did phone Dottoressa Manatti-Scaglieri in a panic after and she reassured him. Strangely the critics declared it the best performance from Elio Perlman ever.   
He supposed he could be a diva and request a bowl of peaches in his dressing room before each performance; better than asking for kittens.   
He could just imagine entering a dingy room and there on the dresser a bowl of peaches, each individually wrapped waiting for him… “Stop it Elio, an erection at the lunch table is not want you need”

“Elly look what Mafalda has prepared! The season is over, but she knows how much you love them so we managed to keep some for you!”  
Mafalda just placed a bowl of peaches in front of him and as soon as he looked at them he felt the blood gush from his nostrils.  
“Sorry, I need to go” he muttered and run upstairs, napkin to his nose, to the attic and threw himself onto the old friendly mattress.

Clutching a peach.

Round and blushing, the ridge almost obscene. He knew he needed to savour the moment, no mad rush of gratification, but delay it as to last him the day; he squeezed it feeling the fluff pressing against his skin and almost came there and then.

Later, lying naked on the mattress, he rubbed the pooling mess of come and juice into his skin and started crying, he missed him so much; every day and month it got harder not easier. Not all the peaches in the world could fill the void.

But Mafalda’s bowl had to last him all the week, he would be good. He had learned about being good, but it killed him each time.


	3. Jouissance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jouissance   
> In French it means sexual orgasm  
> Lancan describes it as it transgresses the pleasure principal towards pain.  
> Or when Oliver meets with Doctor Wills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Oliver, I feel guilty, not. At last I have found a surname I like for him.  
> Please keep in mind that Doctor Will is not behaving as a real analist, I hope at least...

Doctor Wills sighed, he was not looking forward to the session with Professor Oliver Ackner; it was the most complicated case he had ever faced.  
Isabella had been of help, but he felt that while her patient was fine with coping, Professor Ackner needed a resolution.   
The divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour had almost compromised his career and visitation rights to his sons depended on his psychoanalysis sessions.

Tall and good looking, Oliver filled the couch and he needed to bend his legs not to hit the wall in front.  
“So Professor Ackner, how was this week?”  
“Terrible, on the train the girl next to me was wearing Eternity Aqua; the urge to bite her pulse points was overwhelming…”  
“But you did resist, otherwise you would be in jail and not here. So that is good, it is progress.”

He was managing to repress his urges, but he was refusing to implement coping strategies; evidently Professor Ackner was a man of repression.   
Before he could even attempt the Freudian route he needed to discover the origin of the Jouissance. 

“Oliver…” First name, friendly transference “Can you tell me how it started this apricot need?”  
The silence stretched till a small voice started “It was our tenth wedding anniversary, I had booked at her favourite restaurant, the kids were with her parents, I had some champagne in the fridge when we came back home, all was going well… and then it didn’t”  
Understatement if there was ever was; pouring apricot juice over yourself and then begging for anal sex generally is not what a wife expects on a wedding anniversary Greg thought, I mean some might, but I am sure preferences had been previously discussed.

“Yes, but how did this need manifest itself? Do you remember how it started?” If he could break the barrier Oliver kept things would be easier.  
“I have always loved apricot juice since… Since a long time, but it is not that popular here. Susan found a carton in a small bodega and wanted to surprise me.”  
Oliver looked at the ceiling choosing his words carefully; how to describe overwhelming feelings he himself could not understand? Opening the fridge to fetch the champagne and seeing the apricot juice carton? How summer exploded into him and he wanted some of it back. Even a travesty of it.  
“She definitely surprised me and herself!” The hollow laugh hurt Greg. He was a difficult repressed patient, but Oliver Ackner was a challenge that was worth taking; just think of the papers he would get out of him! Isabella would be jealous.


	4. A peach a day…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio makes some decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Giuliano... Peach Melba was invented for the Australian soprano Nellie Melba.

The duty free at London Heathrow was large but Elio had been transfixed at the perfume stand for over fifteen minutes and Giuliano was getting extremely nervous. “Please no breakdown in such a public place” he thought.

“Elio, they are going to call our flight soon, if you want to buy something hurry before security arrests us for shoplifting.”  
Elio’s gaze was slightly unfocused “Do you think I can buy ten of these? For mother of course…”  
The lurid pink of Britney Spears Sunset perfume bottles burnt Giuliano’s retinas.  
“Mrs Perlman has used Opium since the beginning of time.” His tone was harsh as he continued “But if you want to get it for yourself, be honest!”  
Elio did smile at the thought of presenting a box of the perfume to his mother; she would probably stub her cigarette on him.  
But the obscene smell of peaches was irresistible, if he could spray it on his bedding… Of course that would mean no sexual partners in his bed, not that he had any.

Antonia had left him after surprising him in the shower with a peach; of course what really made her angry was the mess he had made in the bathroom.  
Thank goodness she never found out that he was also having sex with the head of unpitched percussion of the Vienna Philharmonic; his biceps were magnificent. Considering Antonia was also leding violinist of the same orchestra, he had been avoiding any collaboration with them for months now.  
It was getting in the way of his work and his sex life.  
Picking up five boxes of the perfume and moving to the cash register he turned to Giuliano “Have you fixed the Southern Hemisphere concerts for next summer? Hope not, I have changed my mind…”

Giuliano could kill Elio sometimes; being the agent of the most gifted pianist ever since the last most gifted pianist ever was not an easy job.  
Weeks of pitching ideas to the director of Sydney Opera house just down the drain.  
“Please Elio, what now?”  
“I was thinking that being in the country that inspired the Peach Melba is not quite a good idea…”  
Carrying the duty free bag full of perfumes he walked towards the gate; he was fed up having to work his life around this obsession.  
A peach a day kept the psychiatrist at bay and he was now ready to face the root of the problem once for all.  
“So I really want to play at Carnage Hall, Giuliano, please organise it!”  
He continued walking and did not turn to look at his agent, who was silently hitting his head against a wall while a small crowd had gathered round him.


	5. The non-Oedipus Complex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doctor Greg Wills breaks down one of Oliver’s walls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, Dr Wills is very unprofessional...

“So Oliver, how did the week go?” Greg’s voice was so upbeat Oliver felt like punching him.  
“Fine” he mumbled. At least he got to see the boys for half an hour in a supervised visit.   
Doctor Wills must have said something positive to the Family Court, since they were giving him a bit more slack.

On the other hand he had not needed the know it all student that tried to talk back at him about the etymology of apricot.   
If he decided that the course for the academic year was about the presence of fruit in philosophy he had his reasons. The Dean could go to hell!   
And the students, especially the students.

“And how have you been dealing with your urges?”  
“Fine” the almost bored tone of voice hid the fact that the fridge in his small flat was now filled with the damned fruit.   
Apart from anything, it was costing him a fortune, without taking into account what he was paying in maintenance to his soon ex-wife.

“What does apricot mean for you? Holding one in your hand makes you feel…”  
“Alive” Oliver replied in the most dead tone of voice.   
But how could he explain the feeling of summer, climbing the tree to pick them knowing that the gaze of the boy was on him. Basking in that feeling; drinking the nectar in the morning while a pair of hands broke off the top of his boiled egg that Mafalda had placed in front of him. The hands, the body they belonged to, the taste of that body, the taste of apricots after breakfast that was him, that was E… No, he could not say that name, he would not call it.

“So Oliver when did you realise you could never marry your mother” Sometimes shock therapy was the only way Greg thought.  
Oliver nearly jumped out of the couch. “Good God, marry my mother? That’s all I need!”

So the problem stems from his childhood, as suspected, such a repressive nature had only one origin, Greg was satisfied, “So you did not want to kill your father?”  
“Yes”  
“Yes you did not want to kill him?”  
“Yes I wanted to kill him, and even now that he is dead I am sorry I will never get the chance!” Oliver shouted, for the first time ever he raised his voice in real rage.   
The wall broke at last and the angry small boy was lying on the couch, he could not hide behind being good or apricots.  
It was going to be a painful session, but Greg knew that a corner was turned.


	6. A Peach by any other name would taste as sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A concert in New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the train wrek of a story is completed with a touch of romantic feelings. Feel free to insult me in the comment section!

Elio hated New York, there was no pleasure walking along the streets, no good memories to hold on.   
Just a place he had visited and every time he had hoped never to bump into that person. 

He looked at the posters for the concert and thought he looked good in the publicity stills. He was wearing his burgundy velvet suit, his curls were styled to perfection and he was smiling in an almost convincing manner.   
“Maestro Perlman in concert at Carnegie Hall. World premiere of new composition” in bold print above him.

“Elly Belly we are so proud of you!” Samuel patted his son’s back, it was the first time he had insisted his parents were present at one of his concerts; he had bought the plane tickets for them and also handed out so many free concert passes to them that Samuel was afraid the auditorium would just consist of the complete New York branch of the Perlman family.  
But Elio was looking better than he had for a long time, if only he would change his perfume, the sweet sickly scent was headache inducing.  
“Elio dear, why haven’t you played this new composition to us?” Annella asked, he tone harsher than intended since the city smoking ban was driving her crazy.  
“Later mother, it is a surprise.” Elio smiled, he was hoping he knew his father and that all would fall into place.   
After over ten years he was going to lay all the ghosts and their peaches at rest. 

The letter on Oliver’s desk glared back at him, there was only one person in the world that resorted to letters and not emails, Professor Perlman. That was all he needed he thought as he chewed on a dried apricot.  
The letter was the usual mixture of gossip and academia, but this time there was also an invitation to meet up and a ticket.   
Oliver stared at the ticket for a lifetime, as though all his nightmares and dreams had converged into the piece of paper he was holding. He could have sworn that it smelled of apricots. Or peaches.

Elio looked at the peach he was holding, the dressing room was as all the dressing rooms in the world, but this time it was different. The peach was different, it felt hostile, redundant. He placed it back into the bowl; he did not need it tonight, and hopefully, not need it in the days after.   
It was soon time to go onto the stage and bare his soul for the first and last time.   
He read Isabella’s text again “In bocca al lupo eroe!” Good luck hero, he smiled, he was not alone.

Samuel saw Oliver in the distance and ran towards him. “Oliver it has been too long! You look…” Looking closely he really could not say you look good or the same; Samuel was a kind but truthful man, and “You look as death warmed over” was an unkind way to start a conversation.   
Oliver was so pale and the rings around his eyes screamed of sleepless nights and obsessive thoughts.  
Oliver shook the outstretched hand Samuel thrust towards him and smiled “Hi pro, it has been too long, over ten years.”  
He looked at the poster on the entrance; the boy had aged but was still as startling beautiful as ever.   
The curly hair he had run his fingers through, those lips that tasted of apricots; he put his hand in his coat pocket, the dried fruit pack was there, he could survive the concert.

“You will join us after the concert for a meal? There will be many Perlmans, but you are welcome!”  
Oliver looked at the large group of Samuel clones hanging around the entrance and held the urge of fleeing.   
“I hope so” he replied, thinking he had time to make excuses after the concert.

As the public sat in the auditorium Samuel wondered what was this fashion for sickly sweet scents men were using these days; even Oliver reeked of it.  
As the lights dimmed Oliver glanced at the program; the usual compositions were there, Beethoven, List, Chopin, no Bach thank goodness.  
Just the last piece was headded “World Premiere: Composer Elio Perlman - Summer Fruits, for O.A”.   
The lights went out, the stage was lit and it was too late for him to escape. He was trapped.

Summer Fruits, for O.A. was one of the sweetest and heart wrenching compositions ever written, a lento con moto where the notes fused as two souls.   
Elio’s fingers caressed the piano keys and evoked summer, the pool, walking through the balcony at midnight, Oliver picking the apricots, riding bicycles, the peach, kissing and the long lonely years stretching into eternity in the final lament.  
As Elio finished he felt so free and light.   
He knew that Oliver was somewhere among the public and that he would know that it was declaration of his feelings. That was all he needed, to be able to tell Oliver that he had loved him, and probably still did.   
He bowed to the public in thanks for letting him play the most important concert in his life.

After the ovations had died down Samuel turned towards Oliver, who was just sitting there with tears pouring down his cheeks.   
“Oliver, are you joining us for dinner? I am sure Elio would be happy to see you” his voice was kind.  
“Yes, I would love to see Elio”   
And as soon as Oliver said the name that he had suppressed for all these years he felt that there was hope again in the world.   
As he got up to follow the Perlmans towards the exit he left the pack of dried apricots on his seat.


End file.
